# Are you an organ donor? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 31, 2013, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888 "2013-01-31T06:28:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/21 "2013-01-31T18:04:48Z")
It’s not on the driver’s license here, but on the health insurance card, I believe. I did sign my sticker thingy. ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/22 "2013-01-31T18:08:07Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Did you recently get a tattoo, or get an unsafe tattoo? People with tattoos can donate. I was told I has to wait a year after getting inked. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/23 "2013-01-31T18:13:05Z")
Organ donor, registered for bone marrow donation, and frequent blood donor. I think I’ve donated around two gallons over the years, but I keep moving, so it hasn’t added up to one of those fancy pins yet. As far as I’m concerned, once I’m dead (and “dead” to me means my brain is no longer generating distinctive phouka-ness), the appropriate authorities are free to dismantle, strip, file, and carve me up howsoever they wish. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lurker\_Above](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Lurker\_Above](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lurker_Above)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/24 "2013-01-31T21:11:23Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > That’s interesting. Is it just the Red Cross’s silly old bureaucracy versus the organ donor network’s (??) newer, hipper bureaucracy, or is medically based that gay organs are safer than gay blood? Perhaps certain organs couldn’t transmit AIDS (corneas?) so you get to sign the donor registry, you’re just not 100% eligible, organ-wise…hmm It’s a risk/reward thing. With blood, if you eliminate the gay male donors you can still get enough blood from other sources to meet the demand. In other words, no one who needs blood goes without due to the ban on gay male donation. Therefore the Red Cross (or Canadian Blood Services here) can afford to be hyper-conservative. On the other hand, with organs it’s so hard to find a match that refusing to take donations from gay men means that people will go without (and quite possibly die before another match is found). ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/25 "2013-01-31T21:28:10Z")
> [@The\_Lurker\_Above](#): > > It’s a risk/reward thing. With blood, if you eliminate the gay male donors you can still get enough blood from other sources to meet the demand. In other words, no one who needs blood goes without due to the ban on gay male donation. Therefore the Red Cross (or Canadian Blood Services here) can afford to be hyper-conservative. > > On the other hand, with organs it’s so hard to find a match that refusing to take donations from gay men means that people will go without (and quite possibly die before another match is found). Ahh, thanks for clarifying! ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/26 "2013-01-31T21:49:34Z")
Though, I believe from time to time and area to area, there are still blood shortages that might be further offset if openly gay males were allowed/encouraged to donate. I think it’s more about screening costs for them. They have probably calculated that X% of openly gay male blood has to be thrown out because of HIV, and it’s just cheaper not to have to screen all that blood than to accept it and only keep 100-X%. _ALL_ donated blood has to be screened and it’s expensive… so if a given population is known to only give a lower percentage of acceptable blood, why take blood from them? I _really_ wish they would allow an exception for gay men who show up with a recent HIV test result showing them negative. I feel this would be at least a step in the right direction. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/27 "2013-01-31T23:20:20Z")
I am, with extreme prejudice. When I worked peds ICU we’d have kids waiting for organs that would get too sick for the surgery, so we’d try to spiff them up to get them back on the list and hope an match didn’t come available while they were too sick to get it. Some of these kids I saw multiple times, so when it’s my turn, you pull the plug sooner rather than later and you part me out like a mother fuckin’ Chevy. ---
**Author:** ![Silvorange](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Silvorange](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silvorange)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/28 "2013-02-01T01:00:14Z")
I donate whole blood and platelets, I’m on the bone marrow registry, I’ve signed my driver’s license and made sure my husband and family will donate my organs when I die, and I am planning to donate a kidney once I get my BMI low enough. P.S. The Red Cross didn’t make the rules about males who have had sexual contact with other males not being able to donate. That comes from the FDA. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/29 "2013-02-01T01:07:47Z")
Yes. I don’t drive, but the UK has had donor cards for donkey’s years, and I used to keep one until they set up the online organ donor registry. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/30 "2013-02-01T01:09:15Z")
No. You can have my bone marrow (I’m registered with the bone marrow registry) but not my organs. Well, maybe part of my liver while alive, but other than that hands off. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/31 "2013-02-01T01:44:07Z")
> [@Silvorange](#): > > P.S. The Red Cross didn’t make the rules about males who have had sexual contact with other males not being able to donate. That comes from the FDA. Thanks for fighting ignorance! ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/32 "2013-02-01T02:03:15Z")
I’m an organ donor, but I don’t donate blood anymore - I consistently felt like total crapola for several days afterward every time I donated, even though my iron levels and everything else are fine. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/33 "2013-02-01T02:54:43Z")
What is the difference between being a donor and being a _living_ donor – at least as far as those in a position to respond to this poll? ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/34 "2013-02-01T03:09:36Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > What is the difference between being a donor and being a _living_ donor – at least as far as those in a position to respond to this poll? A living donor would be one who had already donated a kidney or part of their liver or something, and maybe someone who was actively seeking to do that before they die. ---
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/35 "2013-02-01T03:15:27Z")
Only 2 of us disqualified people here? ---
**Author:** ![Toucanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/36 "2013-02-01T22:06:23Z")
Organ donor, no limitations; on the bone marrow registry; infrequent blood donor, as I always faint during or shortly after the donation (makes it hard for them to get the full pint). Vagus nerve is wonky/over-sensitive or sumptin like dat doctor tells me. And, going for the quatrifecta, donated hair to “Locks of Love”, twice. ---
**Author:** ![Moonlitherial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@Moonlitherial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonlitherial)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/37 "2013-02-02T00:04:50Z")
Organ donor, no limitations but no longer a blood donor. My iron levels dipped low enough for long enough that they blackballed me. I should actually try again though, I’ve been off supplements for over a year now. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/38 "2013-02-02T00:19:18Z")
They are welcome to my lifeless carcass and anything therein. I will done with it by then. Donor o limitations. ---
**Author:** ![Curiosity\_Kills\_Her](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Curiosity\_Kills\_Her](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Curiosity_Kills_Her)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2013, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/39 "2013-02-02T18:16:39Z")
My driver’s license (which expires in August) says I’m an unrestricted donor, but my renewal will not. I have autoimmune disease which disqualifies me. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888/40 "2013-02-03T01:16:26Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > Does your driver’s license have you flagged as an organ donor or do you have other instructions in place to accomplish the same result? Both my driver’s licence and my Navy ID. Used to donate blood, but the ARC won’t take mine any more - was stationed in Scotland 22 years ago. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-an-organ-donor/648888.md?page=3)